The present invention relates to a round baler for forming round roll bales from agricultural products being harvested.
Known round balers for agricultural uses, namely for forming bales of hay, straw or similar crops, are provided with an implement which picks hay or similar crop up from the ground upon the traveling of the tractor along a straw swath and guides the straw or hay into a baling chamber where the bale is formed by packing fingers or baling rolls. In order to tie the formed bale with a binding material, such as a tape or a film, a tape supple roll is mounted on the housing of the baler, from which the starting end of the tape is guided by means of driven advancing rollers into a clearance or play which is formed by the straw picked up from the ground and the wrapped-up straw mat. During a further baling or winding-up of the straw the front end of the binding tape is clamped and wrapped about the wound straw. However, in this conventional device there is a danger that the starting end of the binding tape would not be always taken along by the rotating bale and the supply of the binding material would be interrupted.
One of the balers of the type under consideration has been described in applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 4,185,446. The bale-forming device disclosed in this patent is a mobile baler for hay or like crop material, which comprises a baling chamber defining an inlet opening and a bale discharge gate opposite the inlet opening; pick up device including means for feeding the picked up crop material into the inlet opening under a feeding pressure; and an openable holding device arranged in the baling chamber between the inlet opening and the discharge gate to stop the incoming crop material until it reaches a predetermined baling pressure and subsequently to pass the baled material towards the discharge gate. The mobile baler is also provided with knot-tying mechanisms for forming knots on the twines which extend around the bale being formed in the baling chamber.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,366,665 discloses a round baler provided with a supply roll of plastic film and a pair of nip rolls for engagement with the outer end of the film of the supply roll.
The disadvantage of the known otherwise satisfactory devices is that a high consumption of the binding material and thus its losses take place between the extreme positions of the agricultural product being treated with the rolled binding tape. Furthermore, the process of loosening of the tape wrapped around the bale during the use of the bale is rather difficult.